


Ergo the Sunsets

by Tell_me_about_it_shug



Series: And it's in the quality of the Gods [2]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Character Death, Hurt No Comfort, I suck at writing endings so please bare with me, Inaccurate Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, M/M, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, The Author Regrets Everything, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22327693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tell_me_about_it_shug/pseuds/Tell_me_about_it_shug
Summary: When Icarus dies the world is plunged into darkness.
Relationships: Apollo/Icarus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Series: And it's in the quality of the Gods [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1607104
Comments: 11
Kudos: 100





	Ergo the Sunsets

**Author's Note:**

> My own retelling of Icarus and Apollo. It's not anywhere near the original so be warned. I took alot of creative liberties I think lol.

It was like diving head first into the ocean; exhilarating and fresh and cold and sharp and soothing but at the same time chaotic and hot and bone crushing and salty and burning. This mortal boys lips on his own and his own arms wrapping around his back, with slight fingers leaving melted wax and burning flesh in their wake was like ambrosia and he was more than drunk, tpysy off his own besottedness and he could feel the oceans jealous wrath even from here, so far up and hot that not even the birds dared to soar so high. He could see her tides foil over themselves and rise up on land, breaking away pieces of earth with each slam of her powerful torrents. He could hear the screams of mortal men and women and children as they choked on angry and bitter salt water, and retched on their own brined blood and died slowly.

But He did not care. He kept kissing the boy in his arms, the boy that the ocean longed for. Apollo was selfish, so he closed his eyes and tuned out the cries beneath him and focused on the tongue in his mouth and hands clawing at his back.  
Apollo loved this mortal boy, this boy with skilled and calloused hands and ambition and a wicked tongue and sharp eyes who flew higher than the birds. Apollo loves him so he says "Icarus" like he is the God and Apollo is the reverent servant but then, even now, as Icarus writhed beneath his hands in pain and pleasure he is defiant. Icarus is no servant and he made that clear when he first flew atop Apollos golden chariot and perched on it as if it was birthright and stared Apollo down without flinching and told him to move over so he could rest his wings.

Apollo loves Icarus. 

Which is why he lets him fall into the oceans kinder embrace because he realizes, far too late, that his love was killing him. He watches Icarus fall and watches the boy throw his head back in laughter and Apollo realizes that Icarus loved him too and that his flight was not his triumph, but to have stolen the heart of a God and to have given his own in return and Apollo realizes that Icarus understands and the boy doesn't cry, just laughs as he hits the ocean's waves and that only makes Apollos heart hurt more.

Apollo rages for days after that. If the mortals thought the oceans jealous fit was something to be feared then Apollos anger was a terrifying. Olympus shook the day Icarus died and not even Goddess Artemis could calm her brother's anger.

The sun was merciless. The unsparing heat set Greece ablaze and boiled the insides of infants and friend brains and scorched feat and left blisters and boils on children and burned crops and dried oceans. His wrath stretched across half the world and scorched the plains of Africa until the land was nothing but sand and heat and death. 

Apollo hates everyone and everything. He hates his sister for trying to comfort him and the ocean and Zeus, Ares and every God who has someone to love but squanders it, and at one point he even hates Icarus. Most of all, he hates himself.

He cries and wails and claws at his arms until they are bloody and wishes for death but the blood dries and the scratches heal and death does not come. He gouges out his eyes and cuts his tongue and veils himself and walks among the mortal plane and listens to their suffering and thinks, "Good. I have lost the one whom I loved more than Daphne and all my lovers before her. So my suffering shall be my peoples suffering." 

He heals within days and curses his immortality and starves himself and weeps at the river of Styx and begs Hades for Icarus back and when his Uncle denies him he begs for his own death and Hades is moved by his nephews plight but cannot do anything but allow him to wallow in misery in front of Styx.

So Apollo soaks in his misery for days and thinks of his brave love and the way he laughed when he died and the way he hungered for knowledge the way one would hunger for food and the way the muscles in his back moved when he flexed his wings and the constant burning fire in his eyes. He thinks of how much his touch must have hurt him after they basked in the afterglow of their lovemaking and why didn't he notice his lovers pain sooner. He can see Icarus's body hitting the waves and breaking every bone in his body as the oceans greedy hands wrapped around him. 

Apollo cries more and the world is dark for several days more.

Apollo eventually goes back to his golden chariot. He tears his heart out and lets his lungs collapse against his rib cage and he drags the sun across the world and for the first time ever the sun sets and Apollo feels his body crashing and his hands go limp around the reigns of his chariot and he chokes on his own blood and its like his fire is no more and he's freezing. The blood in his veins freeze but the ichor does not and he dies slow and painfully just like his Icarus did but Apollo does not laugh.

Instead, a grieved sob rattles his freezing corpse and tears and blood stain his face as he dies and he hates his immortality again and begs for this death to be eternal. Artemis can do nothing but watch her brother suffer as she raises her moon into the sky to make up for the sun, cascading the world in almost darkness. Apollo does not cry when he is revived the next morning. He does not cry until his sister comes to him and she embraces him and lets him stain her clothes with his tears and she cries with him and kisses his eyes and his tears because his suffering is hers. 

So Apollo dies at the end of each day, every death different than the last and thinks of his lost love. Thinks of the soft body he'll never hold again or the temples he'd never get to kiss again or basking in the lazy haze of his morning sun surrounded by pink morning glories and his body intertwined with his, his fire softer and more tolerable and stealing Icarus away from his father to lounge in his temple and eat honeyed fruits and soft breads and drink and kiss until they were both drunk off of each other and sweet wine.

He dreams of a kinder world where he could have kept that star born boy in his arms.


End file.
